John Huston

Early life

John Huston was born on August 5, 1906, in Nevada, Missouri. He was the only child of Rhea (née Gore) and Canadian-born Walter Huston. His father was an actor, initially in vaudeville, and later in films. His mother worked as a sports editor for various publications but stopped after John was born. Similarly, his father ended his stage acting career for steady employment as a civil engineer, although he returned to stage acting within a few years. He later became highly successful on both Broadway and then in motion pictures. He had Scottish, Scotch-Irish, English and Welsh ancestry.

Huston's parents divorced in 1913 when he was six years old. For much of his childhood, he lived and studied in boarding schools. During summer vacations, he traveled separately with each of his parents – with his father on vaudeville tours, and with his mother to horse races and other sports events. Young Huston benefited greatly from seeing his father act on stage, and he was later drawn to acting.

Some critics, such as Lawrence Grobel, surmise that his relationship with his mother may have contributed to his marrying five times, and seeming to have difficulty in maintaining relationships. Grobel wrote, "When I interviewed some of the women who had loved him, they inevitably referred to his mother as the key to unlocking Huston's psyche." According to actress Olivia de Havilland, "she [his mother] was the central character. I always felt that John was ridden by witches. He seemed pursued by something destructive. If it wasn't his mother, it was his idea of his mother."

As a child, Huston was often ill; he was treated for an enlarged heart and kidney ailments. He recovered after an extended bedridden stay in Arizona and moved with his mother to Los Angeles, where he attended Abraham Lincoln High School. He dropped out after two years to become a professional boxer. By age 15 he was a top-ranking amateur lightweight boxer in California. He ended his brief boxing career after suffering a broken nose.

He also engaged in many interests, including ballet, English and French literature, opera, horseback riding, and studying painting at the Art Students League of Los Angeles. Living in Los Angeles, Huston became infatuated with the new film industry and motion pictures, as a spectator only. To Huston, "Charlie Chaplin was a god."

Career

1930–1939: Early career and directorial debut

During his stay in Mexico, Huston wrote a play called Frankie and Johnny, based on the ballad of the same title. After selling it easily, he decided that writing would be a viable career, and he focused on it. His self-esteem was enhanced when H. L. Mencken, editor of the popular magazine American Mercury, bought two of his stories, "Fool" and "Figures of Fighting Men." During subsequent years, Huston's stories and feature articles were published in Esquire, Theatre Arts, and The New York Times. He also worked for a period on the New York Graphic. In 1931, when he was 25, he moved back to Los Angeles in hopes of writing for the blossoming film industry. The silent films had given way to "talkies", and writers were in demand. His father had earlier moved there and already gained success in a number of films.

Huston received a script editing contract with Samuel Goldwyn Productions but, after six months of receiving no assignments, quit to work for Universal Studios, where his father was a star. At Universal, he got a job in the script department, and began by writing dialogue for a number of films in 1932, including Murders in the Rue Morgue, A House Divided, and Law and Order. The last two also starred his father, Walter Huston. A House Divided was directed by William Wyler, who gave Huston his first real "inside view" of the filmmaking process during all stages of production. Wyler and Huston became close friends and collaborators on a number of leading films.

Huston gained a reputation as a "lusty, hard-drinking libertine" during his first years as a writer in Hollywood. Huston described those years as a "series of misadventures and disappointments". In 1933 he was in a romantic relationship with actress Zita Johann. While driving drunk, with Johann as passenger, he hit a parked car sending Johann through the glass windshield. She suffered head trauma and Huston was charged with driving while intoxicated. His brief career as a Hollywood writer ended suddenly when he struck and killed actress Tosca Roulien, wife of actor Raul Roulien, while driving. There is a rumor that actor Clark Gable was responsible for the accident, but that MGM general manager Eddie Mannix paid Huston to take the blame. A coroner's jury absolved Huston of blame, but the incident left him "traumatized". He moved to London and Paris, living as a "drifter."

By 1937, the 31-year-old Huston returned to Hollywood intent on being a "serious writer." He married again, to Lesley Black. His first job was as scriptwriter with Warner Brothers Studio, and he formed his personal longterm goal to direct his own scripts. For the next four years, he co-wrote scripts for major films such as Jezebel, The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse, Juarez, Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet, and Sergeant York (1941). He was nominated for Academy Awards for his screenplays for both Ehrlich and Sergeant York. Huston wrote that Sergeant York, which was directed by Howard Hawks, has "gone down as one of Howard's best pictures, and Gary Cooper had a triumph playing the young mountaineer."

1942–1946: Army years during World War II

In 1942 Huston served in the United States Army during World War II, making films for the Army Signal Corps. While in uniform with the rank of captain, he directed and produced three films that some critics rank as "among the finest made about World War II: Report from the Aleutians (1943), about soldiers preparing for combat; The Battle of San Pietro (1945), the story (censored by the Army) of a failure by America's intelligence agencies that resulted in many deaths, and Let There Be Light (1946), about psychologically damaged veterans. It was censored and suppressed for 35 years, until 1981.

Huston was promoted to the rank of major and received the Legion of Merit award for "courageous work under battle conditions." All of his films made for the Army were "controversial", and were either not released, were censored, or banned outright, as they were considered "demoralizing" to soldiers and the public. Let There Be Light was the most controversial as the Army banned the film from public viewing due to the ethics of filming the soldiers' recovery and the lack of written permission supplied by Huston. Years later, after Huston moved to Ireland, his daughter, actress Anjelica Huston, recalled that the "main movies we watched were the war documentaries." These war films thus had a major and lasting influence on John Huston and his work.

Huston performed an uncredited rewrite of Anthony Veiller's screenplay for The Stranger (1946), a film he was to have directed. When Huston became unavailable, the film's star, Orson Welles, directed instead; Welles had the lead role of a high-ranking Nazi fugitive who settles in New England under an assumed name.

1947–1951: Breakthrough and acclaim

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

Huston's next picture, which he wrote, directed, and briefly appeared in as an American asked to "help out a fellow American, down on his luck", was The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). It would become one of the films that established his reputation as a leading filmmaker. The film, also starring Humphrey Bogart, was the story of three drifters who band together to prospect for gold. Huston gave a supporting role to his father, Walter Huston.

Warners studio was initially uncertain what to make of the film. They had allowed Huston to film on location in Mexico, which was a "radical move" for a studio at the time. They also knew that Huston was gaining a reputation as "one of the wild men of Hollywood." In any case, studio boss Jack L. Warner initially "detested it." But whatever doubts Warners had were soon removed, as the film achieved widespread public and critical acclaim. Hollywood writer James Agee called it "one of the most beautiful and visually alive movies I have ever seen." Time magazine described it as "one of the best things Hollywood has done since it learned to talk." Huston won Oscars for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay; his father won for Best Supporting Actor. The film also won other awards in the U.S. and overseas.

Decades later, Film Comment magazine devoted four pages to the film in its May–June 1980 edition, with author Richard T. Jameson offering his impressions:

This film has impressed itself on the heart and mind and soul of anyone who has seen it, to the extent that filmmakers of great originality and distinctiveness like Robert Altman and Sam Peckinpah can be said to have remade it again and again ... without compromising its uniqueness.

Key Largo (1948)

Also in 1948, Huston directed Key Largo, again starring Humphrey Bogart. It was the story about a disillusioned veteran who clashes with gangsters on a remote Florida key. It co-starred Lauren Bacall, Claire Trevor, Edward G. Robinson, and Lionel Barrymore. The film was an adaptation of the stage play by Maxwell Anderson. Some viewers complained that it was still overly stage-bound. But the "outstanding performances" by all the actors saved the film, and Claire Trevor won an Oscar for best supporting actress. Huston was annoyed that the studio cut several scenes from the final release without his agreement. That, along with some earlier disputes, angered Huston enough that he left the studio when his contract expired.

1952–1966: HUAC period

In 1952 Huston moved to Ireland as a result of his "disgust" at the "witch-hunt" and the "moral rot" he felt was created by investigation and hearings by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), which had affected many of his friends in the movie industry. Huston had, with friends including director William Wyler and screenwriter Philip Dunne, established the "Committee for the First Amendment", as a response to the ongoing government investigations into communists within the film industry. The HCUA was calling numerous filmmakers, screenwriters, and actors to testify about any past affiliations.

He later described, in general, the types of people who were alleged communists:

The people who did get caught up in it were, for the most part, well-intentioned boobs from a poor background. A number of them had come from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and out in Hollywood, they sort of felt guilty for living the good life. Their social conscience was more acute than the next fellow's.

Huston took producing, writing, and directing credits for his next two films: Moulin Rouge (1952); and Beat the Devil (1953); both of these were financed by the Woolf brothers for whom Huston had made African Queen. Moby Dick (1956), however, was written by Ray Bradbury, although Huston had his name added to the screenplay credit after the completion of the project. Although Huston had personally hired Bradbury to adapt Herman Melville's novel into a screenplay, Bradbury and Huston did not get along during pre-production. Bradbury later dramatized their relationship in the short story "Banshee". When this was adapted as an episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater, Peter O'Toole played the role based on John Huston. Bradbury wrote more poems, essays, and stories on his time in Ireland, but was reluctant to write a book because he did not want to gossip about Huston. It was not until after he read Katharine Hepburn's memoir, The Making of the African Queen, that he decided that he could write "a book which is fair, which presents the Huston that I loved along with the one that I began to fear on occasion." He published Green Shadows, White Whale, a novel about his time in Ireland with Huston, almost 40 years after he wrote the screenplay for Moby Dick.

Huston had been planning to film Herman Melville's Moby-Dick for the previous ten years, and originally thought the starring role of Captain Ahab would be an excellent part for his father, Walter Huston. After his father died in 1950, Huston chose Gregory Peck to play the role. The movie was filmed over a three-year period on location in Ireland, where Huston was living. The fishing village of New Bedford, Massachusetts, was recreated along the waterfront; the sailing ship in the film was fully constructed to be seaworthy; and three 100-foot whales were built out of steel, wood, and plastic. In the film, Huston's voice was dubbed for the voice of actor Joseph Tomelty and a Pequod lookout. But the film failed at the box office. Critics such as David Robinson suggested that the movie lacked the "mysticism of the book" and thereby "loses its significance."

1967–1969: Involvement with the Irish film industry

I think the politicians who supported building the studio can take consolation in the fact that it's brought a lot of money to Ireland. We're spending more than a million dollars in Ireland and we wouldn't be here if it weren't for Ardmore.

While working on Casino Royale (1967), Huston took interest in the Irish film industry, which had historically struggled to attain domestic or international success. There were rumours that he would buy Ireland's premiere film location, Ardmore Studios in Bray, County Wicklow. In 1967, Huston gave Taoiseach Jack Lynch a tour of Ardmore and asked to form a committee to help foster a productive Irish film industry. Huston served on the resulting committee with Irish filmmakers and journalists.

Lynch also ultimately agreed to offer tax breaks to foreign production companies if they shot on location in Ireland, and signed the Film Act of 1970.

Huston was interviewed in Irish journalist Peter Lennon's Rocky Road to Dublin (1967), where he argued that it was more important for Irish filmmakers to make films in Ireland than for foreign production companies to make international films.

In 1969, he shot Sinful Davey in Ireland using a mixed Irish and British cast.

1972–1987: Later career and final films

After several films that were not well received, Huston returned to critical acclaim with Fat City. Based on Leonard Gardner's 1969 novel of the same name, it was about an aging, washed-up alcoholic boxer in Stockton, California, trying to get his name back on the map, while having a new relationship with a world-weary alcoholic. It also featured an amateur boxer trying to find success in boxing. The film was nominated for several awards. It starred Stacy Keach, a young Jeff Bridges, and Susan Tyrrell; she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Roger Ebert stated Fat City was one of Huston's best films, giving it four out of four stars.

Perhaps Huston's most highly regarded film of the 1970s, The Man Who Would Be King was both a critical and commercial success. Huston had been planning to make this film since the '50s, originally with his friends Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable. Eventually, the lead roles went to Sean Connery and Michael Caine. The movie was partly filmed on location in Morocco and the French Alps. The film was praised for its use of old-fashioned escapism and entertainment. Steven Spielberg has cited the film as one of the inspirations for his film Raiders of the Lost Ark.

After filming The Man Who Would Be King, Huston took his longest break between directing films. He returned with an offbeat and somewhat controversial film based on the novel Wise Blood. Here, Huston showed his skills as a storyteller, and boldness when it came to difficult subjects such as religion. Under the Volcano, Huston's last film set in Mexico, stars Albert Finney as an alcoholic ambassador during the beginnings of World War II. Adapted from the 1947 novel by Malcolm Lowry, the film was highly praised by critics, most notably for Finney's portrayal of a desperate and depressed alcoholic. The film was a success on the independent circuit.

John Huston's final film, 1987's The Dead, is an adaptation of the classic short story by James Joyce. This may have been one of Huston's most personal films, due to his citizenship in Ireland and his passion for classic literature. Huston directed most of the film from a wheelchair, as he needed an oxygen tank to breathe during the last few months of his life. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards and was praised by critics. Roger Ebert eventually placed it in his Great Movies list; a section of movies he claimed to be some of the best ever made. Huston died nearly four months before the film's release date. In the 1996 RTÉ documentary John Huston: An t-Éireannach, Anjelica Huston said that

As an actor

Initially he had done some stage acting in his youth and had occasionally cast himself in bit parts in his own films, such as the unnamed rich American in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Towards the end of his career, Huston began to play more prominent roles in films by other directors. In 1963, director Otto Preminger asked if he would portray a Boston prelate in The Cardinal, and, writes author Philip Kemp, he "virtually stole the picture." He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role. He had a little participation (as did many others) in 1967's Casino Royale as actor and director. He acted in Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974) as the film's master villain, Noah Cross. For his performance he earned a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture. He also acted as President Teddy Roosevelt's secretary of state John Hay in The Wind and the Lion. Huston enjoyed acting and denied that he took it all that seriously. "It's a cinch," he once said, "and they pay you damn near as much as you make directing."

He continued to take prominent supporting roles for the next two decades, including 1974's Chinatown (directed by Roman Polanski), and he lent his booming baritone voice as a voice actor and narrator to a number of prominent films. His last two films, 1985's Prizzi's Honor, and 1987's The Dead, filmed while he was in failing health at the end of his life, were both nominated for multiple Academy Awards. He died shortly after completing his last film. Huston said he did not regard himself very highly as an actor, saying he was proud only of his performance in Chinatown. But he had also greatly enjoyed acting in Winter Kills. He also played the Lawgiver in Battle for the Planet of the Apes.

Huston is famous to a generation of fans of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth stories as the voice of the wizard Gandalf in the Rankin/Bass animated adaptations of The Hobbit (1977) and The Return of the King (1980).

Huston played the lead in Orson Welles's last completed film, The Other Side of the Wind. In it he played an aging filmmaker named Jake Hannaford who was having great problems getting financing for his latest uncompleted film. Much of his portrayal was filmed in the spring of 1974 in Carefree, Arizona, at Southwestern Studio and a nearby mansion. But due to political and financial complications, The Other Side of the Wind was not released until the fall of 2018.

Movie themes

Author Ian Freer describes him as "cinema's Ernest Hemingway"—a filmmaker who was "never afraid to tackle tough issues head on." Huston's films were insightful about human nature and human predicaments. They also sometimes included scenes or brief dialogue passages that were remarkably prescient concerning environmental issues that came to public awareness in the future, in the period starting about 1970; examples include The Misfits and The Night of the Iguana (1964). Huston spent long evenings carousing in the Nevada casinos after filming, surrounded by reporters and beautiful women, gambling, drinking, and smoking cigars.

According to Kaminsky, Huston's stories were often about "failed quests" by a group of different people. The group would persist in the face of poor odds, doomed at the outset by the circumstances created by an impossible situation. However, some members of the doomed group usually survive, those who are "cool" and "intelligent", or someone who "will sacrifice everything for self-understanding and independence". Those types of characters are exemplified by Bogart in The Maltese Falcon, and Montgomery Clift in Freud.

Another type of quest often seen in Huston's films involves a pair of potential lovers trying to face a hostile world. Flint adds, however, that he "bucked Hollywood's penchant for happy endings", and many of his stories ended with "love unsatisfied".

Film historian James Goodwin adds that in virtually all of his films, there is some type of "heroic quest – even if it involves questionable motives or destructive alliances". In addition, the quest "is preferable to the spiritless, amoral routines of life". As a result, his best films, according to Flint, "have lean, fast-paced scripts and vibrant plots and characterizations, and many of them deal ironically with vanity, avarice and unfulfilled quests".

In the opinion of critics Tony Tracy and Roddy Flynn, "... what fundamentally fascinated Huston was not movies per se – that is, form – but the human condition ... and literature offered a road map for exploring that condition." In many of his films, therefore, he tried to express his interest by developing themes involving some of the "grand narratives" of the twentieth century, such as "faith, meaning, truth, freedom, psychology, colonialism, war and capitalism".

Directing techniques

He explored the visual aspects of his films throughout his career, sketching each scene on paper beforehand, then carefully framing his characters during the shooting. Some of Huston's films were adaptations of important novels, often depicting a "heroic quest", as in Moby Dick, or The Red Badge of Courage. In many films, different groups of people, while struggling toward a common goal, would become doomed, forming "destructive alliances", giving the films a dramatic and visual tension. Many of his films involved themes such as religion, meaning, truth, freedom, psychology, colonialism, and war.

George Stevens, Jr. notes that while many directors rely on post-production editing to shape their final work, Huston instead created his films while they were being shot: "I don't even know the editor of my films most of the time," Huston said. Actor Michael Caine also observed the same technique: "Most directors don't know what they want so they shoot everything they can think of — they use the camera like a machine gun. John uses it like a sniper." Danny Huston confirmed as much when he recalled what Huston said to him as the then-youngster was fooling around with a Kodak Super 8: "and I was shooting all these various things. He said, 'Stop it, stop doing that.' I said, 'What?' He said, 'When you go from left to right and right to left, what do you do?' So I looked from left to right and right to left. I said, 'I give up. What do I do?' He said, 'You blink. That's a cut.'"

Film writer Peter Flint pointed out other benefits to Huston's style: "He shot economically, eschewing the many protective shots favored by timid directors, and edited cerebrally so that financial backers would have trouble trying to cut scenes." Huston shot most of his films on location, working "intensely" six days a week, and "on Sundays, played equally intense poker with the cast and crew."

When asked how he envisions his films while directing and what his goals are, Huston replied:

To me the ideal film — which I've never succeeded in making — would be as though the reel were behind one's eyes and you were projecting it yourself, seeing what you wish to see. This has a great deal in common with thought processes ... That's why I think the camera is an eye as well as a mind. Everything we do with the camera has physiological and mental significance.

Personal life

To producer George Stevens Jr., Huston symbolized "intellect, charm and physical grace" within the film industry. He adds, "He was the most charismatic of the directors I knew, speaking with a soothing, melodic voice that was often mimicked, but was unique to him." Actor Richard Burton, whom Huston directed in The Night of the Iguana, opined in his diaries that "Huston is a simpleton. But believes himself to be a genius. And a self aggrandizing liar." Huston loved the outdoors, especially hunting while living in Ireland. Among his life's adventures before becoming a Hollywood filmmaker, he had been an amateur boxer, reporter, short-story writer, portrait artist in Paris, a cavalry rider in Mexico, and a documentary filmmaker during World War II. Besides sports and adventure, he enjoyed hard liquor and relationships with women. Stevens describes him as someone who "lived life to its fullest". Barson even suggests that Huston's "flamboyant life" as a rebel would possibly make for "an even more engaging tale than most of his movies".

1933 car accident

While driving on Sunset Boulevard on September 25, 1933, Huston struck and killed a pedestrian, a Brazilian dancer named Tosca Roulien, wife of Brazilian actor and film director Raul Roulien. The resulting media frenzy forced Huston to retreat temporarily from public performance and instead work as a screenwriter. A subsequent inquest absolved Huston of any blame for the accident.

About six months prior to this accident, while driving drunk, Huston crashed into a parked car injuring his passenger and his partner at the time, actress Zita Johann. Johann suffered head trauma as she was thrown through the windshield. Huston was charged with driving while intoxicated.

Beliefs

It has been suggested that John Huston was an atheist, but his religious beliefs are hard to determine. He claimed that he had no orthodox religion. His daughter, Anjelica, was raised Roman Catholic, and said that he did not like Hollywood, and "especially despised Beverly Hills ... he thought it was just fake from the ground up. He didn't like any of that; he was not intrigued or attracted by it." She said that, in contrast, "he liked to be in the wild places; he liked animals as much as he liked people."

Marriages

Huston married five times. His wives were:

Dorothy Harvey (1906–1982) — This youthful marriage ended after six years (October 17, 1926 – January 10, 1933).

Lesley Black (1910–2003) — During his marriage to Black he embarked on an affair with a married New York socialite, Marietta FitzGerald. While her lawyer husband was contributing to the war effort, the pair were once rumoured to have had sex so vigorously they broke a friend's bed. (m. 1937; div. 1945)

Evelyn Keyes (1916–2008) — They adopted a son, Pablo, whom John discovered orphaned in Mexico. (m. 1946; div. 1950)

Enrica Soma (1929–1969) — Huston and Soma were married until she died at age 39 in a car accident. They had two children: Walter Anthony "Tony" Huston (b. 1950), screenwriter and attorney, father of actor Jack Huston, and actress Anjelica Huston (b. 1951). During the marriage, Huston fathered a son, Danny Huston (b. 1962), with author Zoe Sallis. Danny became an actor. Soma also had a child from an extramarital affair during their marriage. Her daughter, Allegra Huston (b. 1964), is the child of John Julius Norwich. After Soma died, Huston treated Allegra as one of his own children. (m. 1950; died 1969)

Celeste Shane — In his autobiography, An Open Book, Huston refers to her as a "crocodile", and says that if he had his life to do over, he would not have married a fifth time. (m. 1972; div. 1977)

Huston visited Ireland in 1951 and stayed at Luggala, County Wicklow, the home of Garech Browne, a member of the Guinness family. He visited Ireland several times afterwards, and on one of these visits he bought and restored a Georgian home, St Clerans, in Craughwell, County Galway. Between 1960 and 1971 he served as Master of Fox Hounds (MFH) of the County Galway Hunt, whose kennels are at Craughwell. He renounced his U.S. citizenship and became an Irish citizen in 1964. His daughter Anjelica attended school in Ireland at Kylemore Abbey for a number of years. A film school is now dedicated to him on the NUI Galway campus.

Painting

Huston was an accomplished painter who wrote in his autobiography that "nothing has played a more important role in my life." As a young man, he studied at the Smith School of Art in Los Angeles but dropped out within a few months. He later studied at the Art Students League of New York. He painted throughout his life and had studios in each of his homes. One of the last pictures that Huston painted, a colorful watercolor including a ram and a bunch of grapes, along with his handwritten inscription, "In celebration of my beloved friend Baron Philippe's 60th harvest at Mouton -- John Huston," illustrated the label of the 1982 vintage of Château Mouton Rothschild, in one of the greatest years of one of the world's greatest wines, putting him in the company of the renowned artists who illustrated that wine's label in other years. He had owned a wide collection of art, including a notable collection of Pre-Columbian art.

Illness and death

A heavy smoker, Huston was diagnosed with emphysema in 1978. By the last year of his life he could not breathe for more than twenty minutes without needing oxygen. He died on August 28, 1987, in his rented home in Middletown, Rhode Island, from pneumonia as a complication of lung disease, aged 81. Huston is interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood with his mother.

Archives

The moving image collection of John Huston is held at the Academy Film Archive. The film material at the Academy Film Archive is complemented by production files, photographs, and personal correspondence found in the John Huston papers, 1932–1981, at the academy's Margaret Herrick Library. The film archive preserved several of John Huston's home movies in 2001.

Awards and honors

Huston received 15 Oscar nominations in the course of his career and became the oldest person ever to be nominated for the Best Director Oscar when, at 79 years old, he was nominated for Prizzi's Honor (1985), a record he would hold until 2023, when Martin Scorsese attained a nomination at the age of 81 for directing Killers of the Flower Moon. Huston won two Oscars, for directing and writing the screenplay for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Huston also won a Golden Globe for that film. He received the Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute in 1983, and the Career Achievement Award from the U.S. National Board of Review of Motion Pictures in 1984.

He directed both his father Walter and his daughter Anjelica in Oscar-winning performances (in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Prizzi's Honor, respectively), making the Hustons the first family to have three generations of Academy Award winners. He also directed her in Sinful Davey in 1969.

In addition, he also directed 13 other actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Sydney Greenstreet, Claire Trevor, Sam Jaffe, Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, José Ferrer, Colette Marchand, Deborah Kerr, Grayson Hall, Susan Tyrrell, Albert Finney, Jack Nicholson and William Hickey.

In 1960, Huston was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contribution to motion pictures. In 1965, Huston received the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement from the Writers Guild of America. In 1981, his film Escape to Victory was nominated for the Golden Prize at the 12th Moscow International Film Festival. A statue of Huston, sitting in his director's chair, stands in Plaza John Huston in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

Directed Academy Award performances

Under Huston's direction, these actors have received Academy Award wins and nominations for their performances in their respective roles.